Karl Schroeder

Every thirty years, ten billion visitors overrun Earth during one month of madness: partying, polluting, and brawling. In between, the world is ruled by the Million; the inheritors and custodians of all of humanity’s wealth and history, they lead unimaginable lives of privilege and wealth, and they see it as their due. Gavin Penn-of-Chaffee is an illegal child - a visitor hidden among the Million. When the family that raised him in secret is torn apart, Gavin must impersonate a dead boy to survive. What he doesn’t know is that his new identity is expected at the School of Auditors - the Million’s feared police force, sworn to find and capture outcasts like him to keep the peace. In order to solve the murder of his adoptive father, Gavin must keep his disguise and his wits intact within the stronghold of those threatened by his very existence.

When seventeen-year-old Toby McGonigal finds himself lost in space, separated from his family, he expects his next drift into cold sleep to be his last. After all, the planet he's orbiting is frozen and sunless, and the cities are dead. But when Toby wakes again, he's surprised to discover a thriving planet, a strange and prosperous galaxy, and something stranger still-that he's been asleep for 14,000 years. Welcome to the Lockstep empire, where civilization is kept alive by careful hibernation. Here cold sleeps can last decades and waking moments mere weeks. Its citizens survive for millennia, traveling asleep on long voyages between worlds. Not only is Lockstep the new centre of the galaxy, but Toby is shocked to learn that the empire is still ruled by its founding family: his own. Toby's brother Peter has become a terrible tyrant. Suspicious of the return of his long-lost sibling, whose rightful inheritance also controls the Lockstep hibernation cycles, Peter sees Toby as a threat to his regime. Now, with the help of a Lockstep girl named Corva, Toby must survive the forces of this new empire, outwit his siblings, and save human civilization.

It is the distant future. The world known as Virga is a fullerene balloon three thousand kilometers in diameter, filled with air, water, and floating chunks of rock. The humans who live in this vast environment must build their own fusion suns and "towns" enormous wood and rope wheels that are spun for centripetal gravity. This complex and fascinating world is the setting for the novels of Virga, Karl Schroeder's interstellar far-future space habitat sealed off from contamination by the rest of the inhabited universe. These books have set a high standard for hard SF adventure in the last decade, and now the first two novels, "Sun of Suns "and "Queen of Candesce," are brought out for the first time in one trade paper omnibus."

If you love science fiction and would like to write some of your own, this book will give you practical advice. Describing the different types of science fiction and fantasy genres and subgenres, it explains everything from how putting your manuscript together to getting it picked up by a publisher, and suggests relevant resources to put you ahead of the pack.